Regional and Local ChangeRegional and Local Change

Geographer Judith Carney finds that changing agricultural practices alter the rural environment and economy and also relations between men and women. Lands used traditionally by women to grow food for their families are now used for monoculture creating a cash crop with the cash going to the men.

For example, in Gambia international development projects have converted wetlands into irrigated agricultural lands, in order to make production of rice year round.

Cadastral SystemsCadastral Systems• Township and Range System

(rectangular survey system) is based on a grid system that creates 1 square mile sections. US method adopted after the Revolutionary War. Homestead Act-160 acres (1 section) given after 5 years of working the land)

• Metes and Bounds Survey uses natural features to demarcate irregular parcels of land. Found on the east coast of North America

• Longlot Survey Systemdivides land into narrow parcels stretching back from rivers, roads, or canals. Found in Canadian maritimes & Quebec, a remnant of French rule

• Primogentiture-Germanic custom-first born son inherits all land-North America, Northern Europe, Australia etc.

Agricultural VillagesAgricultural Villages• Nucleated settlement-intense cultivation with

homes clustered in a village-most of the world’s farms are nucleated.

• Dispersed settlement-individual farm house widely spaced-North America

• Linear Village-follows a stream or road• Cluster Village-(nucleated) intersection of roads• Round Village-to corral livestock (rundling-

Slavic farmers)• Walled Village-e.g. Medieval Europe• Grid Village-Spanish colonial villages & modern

day planned-towns

Village Forms

Functional Differentiation within VillagesFunctional Differentiation within Villages• Cultural landscape of a village reflects:

– Social stratification (How is material well being reflected in the spaces of a village?)

– Differentiation of buildings (What are they used for? How large are they?)

AgricultureAgriculture

• Commercial Agriculture

Term used to describe large scale farming and ranching operations that employ vast land bases, large mechanized equipment, factory-type labor forces, and the latest technology.

- roots are in colonial agriculture

- today, global production made possible by advances in transportation and food storage

Advances in Transportation & Food StorageAdvances in Transportation & Food Storage- Containerization of seaborne freight traffic- Refrigeration of containers, as they wait transport in Dunedin, New Zealand

Agriculture and ClimateAgriculture and Climate

• Climate Regions (based on temperature and precipitation) help determine agriculture production.

• Agriculture Regions – drier lands usually have livestock ranching and moister climates usually have grain production.

Agribusiness & the Changing Geography of Agribusiness & the Changing Geography of AgricultureAgriculture

• Commercialization of Crop Production

With the development of new agricultural technologies, the production of agriculture has changed.

- eg. Poultry industry in the US

production is now concentrated

farming is turning into manufacturing

Plantation AgriculturePlantation Agriculture• Governments in core countries

set quotas for imports & subsidize domestic production

• Large scale cash cropping is called plantation agriculture-a hold over from the colonial period

• Bananas, sugar, coffee, cacao, rubber and tea are examples.

• Sugar cane is a cash crop that drives the economies of many Caribbean nations

• Cartels are formed to boost prices, but are seldom successful

RubberRubber• Originally collected from a wild

tree in Brazil and Africa, the seeds were planted to create plantations in Malaysia, Indonesia and other SE Asian countries.

• Today 70% of world rubber production is in SE Asia.

• Automobile production in the early 20th century boosted the demand for rubber. Of 17.7 tons used per year today about 10 million tons are synthetic-made from petroleum

• A truck (an old English word for trade or barter) farmer in the city of Jakarta, Indonesia raises vegetables within sight of great skyscrapers.

• Land is valuable and a growing population requires that every square inch of fertile land is used to produce food